that such an interaction should contain, as a minimum, the following basic 

 elements : 



1. Identify Management Need 



a. Types of Management Activities 



o Immediate problem or crisis (impact assessment) 

 o Establish best alternatives (risk assessment) 

 o Planning and long-term development 

 o Resource management 



b. Evaluate Modeling as a Problem Solving Tool 



o Modeling may not be appropriate or applicable in all cases 



2. Develop Model 



a. Workshop for Managers, Modelers, and Research Scientists 



o Clearly and specifically define the management need, problem to 

 be solved, and questions to be asked 



o Define terms to prevent misunderstanding 



o Agree on relevant and tractable areas to approach through 

 modeling 



o Include the citizens ' perception of the problem at the outset 



o Establish the range of scenarios to be tested while a model is 

 in the early stages of development 



o Recognize the benefits of both the decision-oriented management 

 goal (short term) and the ecosystem-oriented scientific goal 

 (long term) of increased understanding of ecosystem processes 



o Assess the need to extrapolate beyond existing data 



b. Modelers Produce Array of Suitable Models 



o Decide on approach (probability, worst case, etc.) 



o Design a conceptual model around the defined problem 



o Determine temporal and spatial requirements 



o Determine precision of the answers accounting for natural 

 variability versus model uncertainty 



o Define data requirements versus availability — what historical 

 data and new data are needed? 



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